Crossing The Street

During this past Sunday’s service, our pastor also interviewed his brother and sister-in-law about new mission work which they were involved in. The wife said something that sounded like it would make a great quote, and I don’t know if it was original or something she’d heard. I didn’t write it down, so I’ll have to paraphrase. She said that “I can’t look in two directions at the same time, so I choose to look ahead.” I know that she meant we have to let go of our past in order to move forward, which I understand, but as the analytical guy in me started to dwell on the comment, an early childhood warning came to mind: “Look both ways before you cross the street.”


Okay Randy, what the heck does that mean? Our parents wanted to keep us safe from harm. It was advisable to look left, then right, before moving forward across the street. This is a lifelong lesson that we should not neglect, even if crossing at a traffic light. We may not be able to look in two directions at the same time, but we can look around before making that final decision. God also gave us a pretty good ability with peripheral vision, so we can take a step back and see a broad scope of the area on either side of the direction in which we are heading. We have peripheral vision, we can turn our heads, and we can move our whole body in any direction we choose. And, with our additional senses, our brains can analyze all these inputs to help us determine the wisest choice before sending that motor input to our legs. I guess what I’m saying is that while we may choose to look ahead, it is our abilities and experiences which God enabled us to endure, that help create the person we are today. When David came to a point in his life where he would face Goliath, God had already trained him spiritually, mentally, and physically through his years as a shepherd tending his father’s sheep.

We can never really let go of our past, because that is an integral part of who we are now. Hopefully, we can extract from the good and the bad, to honor God with our lives as we look forward and cross the street.